Precious
by Dizzy
Summary: Can you wake up, knowing you're all alone in the world now? Chap. Three up, hope you like this mixture of poetry prose and diary... Do I have to say we're inside Christain all the time?
1. I'm dead and keep loving you

Waking up is becoming painful, as if every ray of light that pierces through the curtain hits me with a powerful but invisible

Waking up is becoming painful, as if every ray of light that pierces through the curtain hits me with a powerful but invisible blow. Opening my eyes on this world is becoming painful, as if I can no more stand its curving horizon. Probably because I've no horizon to look at. 

But the blanket falls away curling on the floor and I have to wake, there's no medicine for me here. The warmth of the bed fades away with the last shades of the night, taking away my diamonds, my only drug to drag through the night. The nightmare ceases to hunt me and still I can't feel better. I wonder why…foolishly, blindly. The emptiness is filling everything like a toxic fog.

I know I have to react, but God, it's a such a painful thing to live now. The city wakes up, but I know there's a city that's going to sleep now… the city I've been an active member and that now seems so cold and dark, viscid and obscure. Am I starting to think like my father?!! 

I read once, no…Christian read…but Christian was me…the Christian I once were, read on a book, a yellowish sheet of paper precious for its curled edges and nasty dust: "Better it is to have loved and lost than never to have loved." I thought it was such a stupid phrase, put there to appeal the young inexperienced reader. Now I only find it painful. The mist runs away from the lane like a hunted spirit. Are you there, mon amour? I hope not, and still I want you to be there, so that I can tell myself I've seen you. What for? I can't see you, I can't touch you, I can't dream in your sky. Any more. Painful. God I'm a writer, and all that comes to my mind is : painful. It's becoming a synonym of Christian…

I've to react, I know I should, and a part of myself wants to react, to pick up a brand new sheet of white paper and write. The paper is there and the black ink is there too. 

Paper and ink. 

White and black.

Night and day. 

You and me…

I had my night, with a diamond sparkling only for me. Your sun hasn't been able to protect you from the world, precious one. How dares he wake and look at the true light now? I'm wondering it myself. 

Can you listen to my heart now? I hope you can, love. I hope and for every hope a tear tears me apart.

I'll love you until my dying day…I'm dead now and I keep loving you. 

Isn't love such a stupid drink ? Isn't it better to drown in a crystal glass of absinthe then? The effects are the same. You're taken where you shouldn't be and then thrown down where you truly belong and the fall hurts so much you don't want to stand up and face what may come again.

World is such a stupid empty cold place now, where are you now? God you did this to me, only tell me why! Or give me a hope. I'm hopeless.

The street is filling with chattering people. My hurting eyes distinguish only loving beings walking beneath my narrow opening. The Tower is there, she'll be there forever, hiding the lovers of this city made for hearts and not for broken souls.

The sun shines merciless in the sky. I've found it beautiful once, now it's only…a light…like the thousands that every night are lightened there…where my heart lived and died with the short life of a butterfly, disappearing in the shadows as softly as it had stepped into the light, leaving a diaphanous trace of grace. She was that butterfly, my precious butterfly, my little lively dancer.

The show's gone on tonight, it will go on, but the sky lost its moon and I lost my soul in the dark alleys of this merciless lovely city.

Now that I can't have you here, that I can't hopeful wait for our moments of unbearable joy, life is pale and I'm a ghost looking for my grave, where are you, sacred cats of Anubis? Why aren't you taking me where my soul should be, where the music no more play and all is dust. Wind! I want you to come and take me away!

The weight of my own loneliness brings me to my knees. 

My gift is my song…I would give my life and my art to have the chance to hug you for another second…and this one's for you…my Muse, my everything. I'm sounding like a foolish now…I'm in love, in love with Death now…And you can tell everybody, that this is your song…who cares if there's another broken heart walking these streets? Words flow so smoothly now that I know my pain and my limit. If only I could write with my blood, it would teach this world a lesson. Love rhymes with loss. It would be the best epitaph in the cemetery…To Christian, a poet who touched the heart of Life and brought these words into this world: Love rhymes with Loss. He'll be forgotten but these words will hunt the lovers until the end of times.

I'm sounding squalid now…

Come what may  
Come what may  
I will love you until my dying day…

There will be no joy in my life now, only the dreadful memory of a joy that was and can't be. Come what may, I'll let it pass and leave a mark on my skin, you would find me quite passive but it is your loss that makes me weak.

Sing out this song  
I'll be there by your side

Where's my voice? I can't sing, mon amour! Where's my voice?! I want to sing, mon amour! 

I'm shouting now! The touch of a my angel gave me strength.

Stay there, please don't leave now. In the morning light you're such a beautiful mirage. Your mouth's moving…Sing out this song and I'll be there…Write Christian!

  
  



	2. Just a hour later

It's been a while, quite a long one, since I picked up my pen and wrote something on the paper

It's been a while, quite a long one, since I picked up my pen and wrote something on the paper. 

I'm doing it now. It feels so good. 

I remember Christian loved to look at the world and let the mind freely form verses… it wasn't poetry but it looks like it was and he's filled hundreds, no thousands, of sheets with fragment of life. He hasn't done it for years and now that I'm dead and recovering those silly shining fragments of living glass pop up when I don't want. I thought I've grown older…and become a better poet.

Just a moment ago 

a little bird unknown

rested outside my window

An active short shadow 

While the city there down

Wakes up and start to go.

It was just a moment ago.

I'd forgotten how wonderful it was…

There are bottles scattered all over this room; I've felt so empty at times. I consider myself a weak for letting those bottle stand between me and my life. What else I can do though? I'm hunted by my own dreams and when the burning greenness enters me it's like a firework exploding, but like every fireworks it's short lived and suddenly dies. I've blamed my friends for drinking; now they're the one who blame and who try to rip the bottle from my fooled grip.

This page is filling with nonsense, so I'll try and order my thoughts, while they're still out of reach of the toxic charming green liquid that fills the glass on my left side. It's nine o'clock now and the city is living again under my window. I want to stop time! 'Cause it can only get worse and worse. I've seen her this morning, last sparkle of the moon. I told myself it was she I saw, but probably I was only staring at my favorite mirage, playing with me again. 

My heart still bleeds but now, sometimes, it gives my a break and I can stand up from the bed without retching on the floor and feeling as if my soul was being torn from everyone of my bones and muscles by a hungry wolf.

My friends, the few I still have, have tried to pull me out of my shell. They bring me the paper and food and fresh water. They treat me like an ill man. I'm not ill. I'm dead. They laugh and say that I only _look_ like I'm dead and that I've so much to give to the world and to get from it in return that I've to live, for the world's sake. 

I look like I'm dead, and I feel dead inside…our looked like the most perfect love in the world, it was… I've filled sheets with it, with the silly love songs you said to hate but that I've heard you hum when you thought I wasn't listening…who was the fool then? 

I've filled sheets with dreams, 

dreams of us dancing in the sky, 

of me never shy,

of the time passing by

with us walking on a way

Singing 'Come what may'

Until our last day.

Now there's no joy

You're so far away

The moon lost its way

And I myself decoy.

I don't know for how long I will keep writing, but if I'm putting myself on this paper, I'm not surrendering to the avid impulse of beating me with the hypnotic ever moving greenness within my reach. And I will drug myself with the impression I'm talking to you.

I hope you don't mind…God why you gave man memory! I want you not to think about it…what are you writing Christian?! This is rubbish!

I hope you don't mind, Precious,

If I sound a bit fool here but, like every crazy man, you're the sweetest way of killing myself and I want you to be with me, in a way or the other. I remember how angry I was at that…man… touching you, wanting you, longing for your presence, inhaling your perfume and playing with the soft curls of your hair. Passion sounded within me like perfidious violins and a chorus of Christians called your name; my sight foggy for the anger and the ardor could only perceive the sparkles of your dress. Ah…the past is the past and I'm not going to bring you back to me with this rubbish I'm writing. 

I'm not Orpheus.

But if I were 

I'd come where you are

And save you from the dark

Not to let you become

Only a memory in the dust.

Someone's knocking, sorry dear, I'll be back in a moment.

It was Jack, no you don't know him, I don't know him myself! He's the son of a friend of my father, or something like that. He's recognized my style - do I have a style?! - in the latest songs of the Moulin…I've sold four songs after you…left, just to eat and to pay the bills. Now that you're no more here with your icing warm eyes, looking at me while I'm writing, the rare sheets I fill are a treasure I don't want the world to see. They've already stolen my most perfect creature.

Look! There are birds outside the window! They sing…but you were the best.

It's midday but my stomach is not murmuring so I won't stop writing, not now, even if the world crushed into the sun and the stars started raining from the sky. I simply can't stop, I feel you so near now I want to shout for the joy. There's an echo of cancan in this room. Of course! I'll tell everybody the stories behind the best spectacle in the known world! My forehead is bathed in sweat but I don't care. The burning liquor descends inside my body, lightening me up. You and this drink are pulling me to my grave but I don't mind.

I can barely see the paper now, it's four thirty and the bottle is empty, its glass scattered on the floor with other glasses. Sorry dear, I fell from our stairway to heaven again. But I know you'll be patient and wait for me, just a step further from me to encourage me.

Why did you leave?

You wanted me to feel

Pain and sorrow all my life?

Your lips acted like a knife

On my poor soul of boy

Fooling me with false joy.

Why didn't you ask?

Stoic keeping up your mask

Now I can only see you at dusk

Dancing in the dead shadows

Through enchanted meadows 

Where other wretched wait

To have with love a date.

I hate you! Like I hate my own body and soul, so weak now, so painfully conscious of the cold world!

These are my last words to you, beloved.

You let me see the sky, and I believed that in this world, there was a blade of celestial light for us. 


	3. Born again to face the world

It's midnight now, the absinthe's fooling 

It's midnight, the absinthe's fooling sweetness is leaving me now. 

I'm so sorry, I feel so stupid. I hope you're not angry at me, sweetest of the beings of Heaven, I've started again without noticing it…I won't do it again and I will put all myself in the stories I'm planning to write. 'The red curtain', I want to call them this way… I promise I'll develop every one of the ideas that will pop into my mind, but please don't leave me… 

I'm all alone now; the friends left for the Moulin a hour ago. They asked me to come with them, to go and see the new numbers, the one I wanted you to bring to life. The red curtain is raising now on a new star - they said she's gorgeous and you'd be happy to see her - what's her name?… Moss?… Ivy! She's as flexuous as a new-born plant, delicate like a flower, deadly like a panther of the Indian forests…It sounded so familiar, so achingly familiar and dear…

I've visited your grave this afternoon. I passed by chance and recognized it. There's only your name there…I want to put a perfect epitaph, the most powerful still gracious I can give birth to.

Now, it's time to start writing:

He was after her; she could feel his icing presence following her. She thought she'd left him a month ago, when she had first come to the city. But he was there and she didn't know where else she could hide. The alley seemed a good place so she stopped in the darkness. There was no moon in the sky and the lonely streetlights couldn't reach her, she was safe. When the hurrying steps approached the alley she hid behind a short stone staircase, trying to become as little as she could. Her heart was in her throat, bumping furiously. 

The shadow stopped, panting. Isabelle whispered a prayer to the God up there, begging for help. The steps moved farther and the access of the alley was empty again. She waited another moment then breathed deeply. Now the night didn't seem so dark and moist and she wasn't feeling so cold and alone.

There was music playing, she noticed…the rhythm filled her being and as she stood up, without wanting it, she started dancing. At first lightly, moving with care, but soon the music became louder and she couldn't help dancing in the street. The large skirt started fluttering around her as she mimed a can can on the stone stage. She felt so good she forgot her problems and the urge to come back home as fast as she could. She could only dance, sliding and pivoting, clapping the hands. The lights started changing into stage lights and she imagine the clapping audience beneath her, whistling and acclaiming her name. She felt dizzy but it was fine and enchanting, like drinking.

The music then, as sudden as it had begun, stopped and Isabelle found herself alone in the middle of the street.

The sound of someone clapping and shouting "Magnificent! Magnificent!" iced the girl, who suddenly felt all the weight of that distressing night. She turned around, frightened and embarrassed. There he was, sitting on a stone staircase, a bottle resting near him. The light fell on him with grace. He wasn't him. The young man stood up, swinging a little, and moved toward her, still clapping. 

Isabelle stood there, waiting but most of all listening, to the muffled sounds of the night, to perceive in time the terrible steps she wanted to push far away. 

The young man stopped a meter from her, moving cautiously.

"You were magnificent…really…the most wonderful can can I've ever seen danced in a street…at the Moulin you'd made a whole better effect though…"

"The Moulin? You're talking about THE Moulin?"

"Yeah…you'd be a fantastic dancer…and I'd come to see you every night and bless God every day for letting me see an angel…"

Isabelle felt strange, pleasantly fooled by the sweet words of the young, a bit drunk, man.

"What's your name?"

She was going to answer, she felt the need to do it but the sound of steps approaching stopped her. She turned around, saw a shadow and was filled with a sudden fear. The charming young man wasn't charming enough to risk and she started running. The young man called her, then shouted. "I'll wait here for my angel to come, tomorrow."

She heard the words but she wasn't sure she would be there the following day… she simply nodded and threw away the foulard she wore around her shoulders.

"Bye, mon ange." Came to her hears as she left the rue.

Probably it was all the fear she'd felt, or the magnificent freedom of the impulsive dance, but Isabelle couldn't sleep. When she tried to close her eyes, he was there and at first she thought he was him…come from her worst nightmare to make of her a peasant, a peasant! She could sing and dance and she wasn't going to be a peasant, married to a peasant without knowledge, violent and drunk most of the time. She had wanted to fly away from the village and now she was in the City, trying her best at living. 

She found the courage to focus a moment on the image and discovered, with crescent happiness, that he was the young charming man the shadow she saw…His way of talking was perfect, he'd studied of course, probably with one of the best tutor of France, no wit the best, in an elegant room in one of the many castle-like houses she'd dreamt about…and his voice, so pure and strong, had the sincerity only the gentlemen had. 'Mon ange…' no one had called her that way before, he was a gentleman. She wanted to meet him again and to hear him calling her again and again: 'Mon ange…mon petite ange…' When would tomorrow come?! The darkness of the room was still and silent, the lively nightlife of the city was far from her from the humble flat she divided with her new friends, other six young lively women, eager to live and try like she was. 

The day passed by slowly, awfully slowly. The family where she worked was so awfully simple, even if they were awfully reach and powerful. They'd kept on shouting her to pay attention here, watch out there, bring this, carry that. The children! They must not shout and jump like that all over the room, there are guests!

When the sun set slowly over the tormented horizon of the city Isabelle jumped into street, shouting all her happiness without noticing the expression of the people who passed there.

At home she asked for the help of the other girls and dressed herself up in the best dress the house offered. She put on a bit of make-up and a necklace and hopeful left the house.

The place was as she remembered, the thick darkness didn't seem so cold though. The music was muffled.

"You've come. My whishes have been heard then." The velvet-like voice came from behind. She turned, smiling. He was so tall and gracious and now she could see his eyes, two splendid precious blue stones. He was a pure gentleman.

He offered her the arm and she accepted with a little bow and a big big smile. As they started walking he started singing, softly. Isabelle listened to him enchanted, it was the most fantastic song she'd ever heard.

When he finished they had arrived. She noticed where they'd stopped only when she heard the loud music and the loud chattering and clapping. The Moulin was there in all of its lights.

"Surprise, surprise, mon ange." Whispered the young man as he led her to the back door. 

"Why are we…" she asked, embarrassed and unsure.

"Surprise, surprise…" repeated the young man, smiling. He left her for a moment, disappearing inside then came back with another fat funny man and two women dressed like can can dancers.

"She?" asked the fat man and the young man nodded.

"Let's give it a try…Nina." One of the two woman, the slimmer one, moved and reached her. Isabelle breathed in perfume and white soft powder.

"Come with me, Ange…"

She looked at the charming young man who nodded, smiling and she felt immediately reassured.

"Don't worry, dear, Jack will be there…"

Jack. She finally knew his name… 

There was movement and excitement and loud music and everything was filled with light. Nina took her to the wardrobe and rapidly chose a dress for her.

"This is not something that usually happens here but…if you're as good as he told, we'll give this a try…put this on." The dress was thrown at her and the moment after she was inside a narrow room changing her dress. After a little adjustment Nina removed her make-up and put on another one. When she looked at her face she barely recognized her own face.

"Then, Ange…after this song it's your time…"

"My time?!"

"You're going to exhibit…when the music end and the stage is clear hurry to the center from then…it's your business…"

Nina rushed out of the room and Isabelle followed her. Nina pushed her on stage a moment before thecurtain was removed. 

"And now directly from heaven is here for you…Ange!"

The red shelter faded and she faced the audience; the music started and two brawny men appeared form the side. After a deep breath she started.

As she pirouetted and twisted, singing the song that Jack had sung to her, she recognized him, standing near a column, watching her, smiling and drinking.

"She's good…nice and can sing in an acceptable way…"

"Yeah yeah…she's marvelous…and I want my money now." The fat man nodded. "Oh…and she's my private property…"

"Of course, of course."

Love, you like it? I hope so… It's time to go to bed now. 

Sweet dream upon the stars, Precious. 


End file.
